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OCR Rendition - approximate
I INTRODUCTION 11 an ordinary finger print contains about twenty-four of these squares, the uncertainty in respect to the entire contents of the pattern due to this cause alone, is expressed by a fraction of which the numerator is 1, and the denominator is 2 multiplied into itself twenty-four times, which amounts to a number so large that it requires eight figures to express it. A further attempt was made to roughly appraise the neglected uncertainties relating to the outside conditions, but large as they are, they seem much inferior in their joint effect to the magnitude of that just discussed. Next it was found possible, by the use of another artifice, to obtain some idea of *the evidential value of identity when two prints agree in all but one, two, three, or any other number of particulars. This was done by using the five ridgeinterval squares, of which thirty-five may be considered to go into a single finger print, being about the same as the number of the bifurcations, origins, and other points of comparison. The accidental similarity in their numbers enables us to treat them roughly as equivalent. On this basis the well-known method of binomial calculation is easily applied, with the general result that, notwithstanding a failure of evidence in a few points, as to the identity of two sets of prints, each, say, of three fingers, amply enough evidence would be supplied by the remainder to prevent any doubt that the two sets of prints were made by the same person. When a close correspondence exists in respect to all the ten digits, the thorough-
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